For those of you that read my last post about the Chesapeake House Travel Plaza this was the next Plaza along I-95 in Maryland.  To be honest I was still enjoying my snack from the first Plaza when I came up to this one but figured I would stop in just to see if there were any penny machines and wouldn’t you know it there were actually three of them.  This location is called the Maryland House Travel Plaza and is located at mile marker 81.9 just near Aberdeen.

I visited here quite a few years ago and from what I remember this place has been completely renovated.  It’s really a nice place to stop in and grab some food, or just walk around and stretch your legs.

As I mentioned there are three penny machines located here.  But two of them I have actually come across at other locations.  After I got back home I checked my trusty online resource for pressed coins and got some information from pennycollector.com.

The first machine as you can see from the bottom of the image above is from Washington, DC.  I had taken my family on a long weekend trip to DC a few years ago and used this machine at its original location called Honest Abe’s which was a gift shop outside of Ford’s Theatre.

The designs have not changed and include images of Abraham Lincoln, the Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial and Ford’s Theatre.

The next machine is a Hello Kitty themed unit that I originally found in New York City in the heart of Times Square.  There was a Sanrio Hello Kitty store that I snuck into and pressed these coins.  As with the Honest Abe machine these designs have not changed.

I do not know anything about Hello Kitty or her friends so I had to look this information up online.  The pennies have designs of Hello Kitty, Little Twin Stars, My Melody and Tuxedo Sam, and Badtz Maru and Hello Kitty.

The third and final machine located here was back to the Maryland themed coins I’ve been finding along I-95, but were not duplicates to anything I had pressed so far on my trip.

Here we had the Maryland Home Travel Plaza, the Naval Academy Est 1840, My Maryland Lucky Ball Marker, and a famous Maryland Crab.

It was kind of strange to find the first two machines here, the Washington DC one not so much since it was relatively nearby.  But the one from New York City had made quite a trip.  I’m not sure this is a dumping location for machines on the way out of commission, or if they are being transitioned to other locations.  In any case if you are interested in these I would go get them as soon as possible.  Who knows where they will go next and what will take their place.

On a recent business trip I had to cut through Maryland and took the opportunity to check out a few Travel Plaza’s on I-95.  First up was the Chesapeake House Travel Plaza which is located between exits 93 and 100.

The nice thing about this plaza is you can access it from both the North and South bound sides of I-95.  After making a quick pit stop I wondered around to find the two penny machines located inside.  It was pretty early in the morning so not much was open yet inside, but luckily the machines were out in the main area for use.

As you can see there weren’t many people around so it made using these machines really easy.  I always find that usually at these travel plazas if there are machines people are always leaning on them and worst of all if they are near the restrooms good luck fighting the crowd to press your pennies.

The four designs were of the Drum Point Lighthouse, the Maryland State Flag, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, and I Bussed Along I-95.  With these coins safely stashed away  I made a 180 turn and directly behind me just a few strides away was the second machine.

I will say that coming from Jersey we have a lot of machines located up and down the Turnpike, Parkway and AC Expressway but a lot of the designs are duplicates.  These two machines have some nice unique designs that are Maryland themed.

This next set of four pennies includes the Chesapeake Bay, Frank Zappa, a Black-Eyed Susan (MD State Flower), and the Baltimore Orioles Logo.

Before leaving I grabbed a coffee and a quick snack before heading back out to my car.  I still had a long drive ahead of me and quite a few more pennies to press.  Remember if you are traveling along any of the big interstate highways and need to stop for gas or a quick snack be sure to explore every inch of the plaza because you never know where you may find a penny machine.